When we want to get to the next level of success in our business, before we take outer action, it is important to make internal changes. These changes will allow us to move forward faster by supporting us to take internally inspired action. There is an abundance of beliefs we hold about ourselves that determine our success or failure.

When making these changes, we need to examine our internal beliefs. If we have limiting beliefs, we first need to clear them before we can succeed. For example, the belief that no one wants what you offer is connected to being able to acknowledge the value of what you offer.  Changing this unsupportive belief into “I share my gifts with the world, and the world benefits in these ways…” will support your business success in an immeasurable way. 

At first, it may not be possible to believe the new statement.  You may need to first collect evidence that supports the limiting belief and challenge it by asking yourself how someone has benefited when you have offered your gifts. It might have been a co-worker or a friend in the beginning stages of your business when you haven’t yet had many clients.  If you have had client success stories, keeping a record of them to remind you how you have helped someone else by sharing your gifts may be supportive of your growth. 

I encourage coaching clients to ask their clients what they would pay to take away the pain they are presently going through.  The response is often a surprise.  I then guide my clients to create a process of collecting evidence to support their new beliefs so that the old limiting beliefs can start to lose their power and the new refreshing beliefs can sprout and bloom. 

I would ask you to choose life-affirming beliefs to support your abundant success.

One of the quickest ways to feel abundant is by sharing our gifts with others. I often heard the advice of famous self-help gurus, “Give what you seek.”  The most memorable personal experience I had with this was after my son was born.

Becoming a mother was the most overwhelming experience of my life. I had let go of my marketing job. I had just completed my coaching training.  And now I had a new baby. I couldn’t see myself going back to work and taking care of my son so I became a stay at home mum.  Although I value the role of mother, I was at the same time, anxious to share my gifts with the world through my business and I had energy that I needed to express. 

I was challenged to find a way to promote my business while meeting the needs of my son.  I was felt as though I had nothing to offer.  One day, I asked myself “Rather than waiting to promote my business, how can I share my gifts now?”  I found an organization that helped new immigrants settle in Canada.  They were looking for a coach to volunteer to work with the women.  My husband agreed to look after our son for a couple of hours so that I could volunteer my time and skills to others. 

I met people in the organization who had previously been CEO of their own companies, doctors and engineers.  Now they were in Canada starting their lives from the scratch, seeing no choice but to take manual jobs in spite of having so much talent and ambition. It brought tears to my eyes. I felt humbled to be in a position to help them believe in themselves. It was truly a transforming experience and I felt rich as a result of sharing my gifts. The thank you cards and the gratitude I received when I shared information with them on how to tap into the Canadian market were priceless. 

I believe that every one of us has a lot to give, even when it may feel as though we have nothing working in our lives.  I would encourage you to start sharing your gifts with the world.  Start wherever you are and see how life unfolds its magic!

Our passion is often born out of either pain or the desire for more pleasure in life. We may love cooking and decide to open a bakery or we may have suffered a serious illness and now want to use our life experiences to help others who are going through an illness. 

The clients I work with often have deep purposes and want to make a huge impact on the lives of other people. I ask them questions to help them clarify their purpose. I dig for gold in the dark, look for the gift in their pain. 

One of my clients wanted to start a magazine about the diversity of cultures in America. She had suffered first hand the stereotypes associated with her culture while growing up. She decided to use her experiences to shed light on the myths and truths about different cultures in America. What a great way to use her life experiences to assist other people! 

A second client had a challenging childhood and had learned many lessons throughout her lifetime.  She is now producing a movie on forgiveness. By putting her message of forgiveness out into the world, she is healing parts of herself while helping others to heal. 

A third client became passionate about healthcare because she didn’t feel taken care of while growing up. She developed a deep awareness and sensitivity to the needs of those who require healthcare. 

Another client was passionate about creating and promoting natural hair care products. She also wanted to educated black women about straightening their hair and encouraged them to leave it natural.  She shared with me that when black people were brought to America for slavery, they weren’t allowed to wash their hair often, because it would take away time from their labour. It was a combination of genetics and slavery that caused them to put beeds in their hair. She wants black women to embrace their natural beauty. What a deep purpose. 

I am privileged to support women as they explore the depths of their personal paths. I am also honoured to hear about many different experiences and how each one is connected to a deep purpose. I would encourage you to look at the experiences in your life that were difficult and find depth and purpose in them.

Today, I want to share a story about style. I was in the mall yesterday and stopped at a jewelry counter. I was admiring the jewelry at a stall when I commented, “I wonder which ones of these will go with my dress.” A woman at the counter overheard me and asked if I could help her decide what should she wear with her dress. She shared a story about a dress that she has always liked, “but it is strapless and kind of out of fashion,” in her opinion.

I looked at her and said, “You know, fashion fades.  Style is internal – it’s permanent. It is an authentic expression of who you are.” She was excited and told me having heard that, she was looking forward to wearing what she wanted to wear. We matched jewelry with her dress and the smile on her face was brilliant.

In my coaching practice, I coach a woman in her business matters and more; I coach her as an entire person. I had a client once who had been in the corporate world for so long that the only clothes in her wardrobe were navy, white and beige. When we began to work on her feminity, she started to risk wearing purples and pinks. After working together for six months, she came to see me at a speaking engagement, and chose to wear a pink dress with pumps. She told her 4-year-old girl that she was going to see her coach today and that she wanted to wear pink. It brought tears of joy and gratitude to my eyes. I felt touched that I had helped her become more of who she wanted to be. 

We have been trained to fit into the outside model of business for so long that we sometimes forget what we want and place more value on external approval than on personal approval. 

As a part of my one year platinum program, I am looking forward to adding a special feature, a photo shot with my favourite photographer, for my clients when they come to visit me in Vancouver. I am excited to be helping women express their inner self to fully engage in their life and business. 

I would encourage you to pay attention to your inner style and celebrate the abundance of your own style. Claim it, live it and own it!

Each day we are presented with an abundance of choices regarding what we would like to do, what is important to us and what brings us most pleasure. 

When sitting with Entrepreneurs using the vision story tool to help them create a successful business plan, we often start with the lifestyle choices. Lifestyle choices include the hours they would like to work as well as how much income they would like to generate. What types of marketing activities they enjoy doing themselves and what would need to be delegated. After all, Entrepreneurs choose to start their businesses so that they have more control over their lives as well as the opportunity to express their talents in their own creative ways. If what you like about the work you do is variety, stimulation and flexibility of hours then that should be considered before writing a vision story or a business plan. 

We never want to start a business and let it become our entire life. We want a business to serve our lifestyle. We want to be in a business that helps us be who we are. We each bring our unique set of experiences and wish to express our natural talents.  When we can do this, we run a joyful business. We don’t need to do things the usual way. We are Entrepreneurs because we are willing to take chances and risks.   However, we do it on our own terms.  I have always believed in taking in all there is and choosing from the best, given a person’s unique nature. 

My eight year old son is my partner in my ‘abundance treasure hunt,’ journey. He asked if he could subscribe to my newsletter. I explained to him how it works and that I share my stories of what is great about my life and then the participants who have signed up for the hunt share their stories. Every week, we reward the best story with an e-book that has valuable gifts to download. He was listening keenly. Then he told me that he will send me a story about how money he has saved and his abundance of toys. Then he asked me if I could make him ‘win.’ Ah….here is a choice to make. I told him that the e-book is a business book.   If he won, what prize he would like? He said, ‘$10’ because he is saving for a game. Now I can to choose to make two winners. One who is the winner in this 30-day abundance hunt and another who is my buddy in the abundance hunt journey of life. What do you, my readers suggest? I would love your input! 

It is wonderful to be able to do work that allows me to be around my family.  I get to share my creative pursuits with them and witness my son excited about what mum is up to. 

What choices would you make regarding your abundant life? Who would you serve? Who would you connect with on a regular basis? What hours would you work? What kind of lifestyle will you have? Ask yourself and get absolutely clear so that the Universe can deliver to you what you would like to create.

To join us on the Abundance Treasure Hunt please visit: http://www.zahraefan.com/abundancehunt.php    

One of the reasons entrepreneurs choose to become entrepreneurs is so that they can be flexible in their schedule as well as innovative and creative in how they offer their services. 

Being an Abundant business coach for women, I am always looking for different ideas on how businesses generate income and what can be flexible about the offerings they have. 

Today, I was at the Elizabeth Arden counter, shopping for some stuff. You might know that all the big make up stores offer free makeovers, if you purchase a certain amount of make up from them. I am not big on make-up and don’t like to have more than a couple of warm and cool colours in my collection. I don’t like to clutter my space, so I only buy what I use. 

I do, however, love skin care and Elizabeth Arden in particular has always agreed with my skin. Other than during the time when I was selling Mary Kay and loyally using their cosmetics, I have used Elizabeth Arden. 

I asked the girl at the make up counter if I could buy skin care products in exchange for her time for a makeover rather than make up. She happily agreed. Skin care is the more expensive purchase so it is actually a better deal for them and it’s better for me to buy what I use. It reminded me how we can be flexible in our service and product offers to our clients. 

On that note, I would encourage you to book a free makeover before you attend a holiday party, feel like a princess and Goddesses while stocking up on your favourite skin care line. Let me know how it goes.

Ah finally… we speak about money. As you know there are many kinds of abundance for us to enjoy and money is one of them. Money is a tool we use to exchange goods and services in business and life. Money is an energy that places a value on what we offer to each other! For many of us, money is a hot topic.  Some of us do great work and have a difficult time charging for it. 

I had a session with a client today who has had money struggles for many years.  We discussed what she is great at and how her work impacts the lives of others. I asked her to share an actual story of how she made a difference in the life of one of her clients in her current job. 

After she shared what she was able to do for the client, I asked her “If you were in a situation similar to your client and received help to get to the free of it, how much would you be willing to pay?”  She said, “Anything?”  So that she would hear herself acknowledge that the value she offered was priceless to her client I asked, “Anything?”   She said, “Yes.” 

Next I asked her if she was willing to pay anything to be free of the pain her client was in, why was she hiding and not helping and impacting the world at large.  The money problems in her life arose so that she could get motivated initially to meet her own needs.  When she allows, her services will meet the needs of many.

I would encourage you to look at what you have to offer and fully own what a difference your unique contribution can make.  Then be willing to charge for it so that others in the world can pick up on your abundant attitude and begin to charge what they are worth!

To sign up for the Abundance Treasure Hunt, and win valuable prizes, please visit http://www.zahraefan.com/abundancehunt.php